Arkansas TOGA!

On the way home from Texas, I went to the first ever Arkansas TOGA (Treadle On Gathering and Academy), in Mena, Arkansas.  After the crazy car week I'd just had, I needed some time with vintage sewing machines.

Several of us rented a cabin outside of Mena.  While searching for some cookie sheets (never found any of those), I found 3 tiaras.  Well, we had to have some pictures, of course.

me, Margaret and Lisa

 On Friday and Saturday, we played with lots of lovely vintage sewing machines.
First up, is the sewing machine my SIL found for me in New Mexico, earlier this summer.  It was waiting for me at my inlaws house.  Since the bentwood cover said 'Singer' on the outside, we all thought it was a Singer machine.  Nope!  When I got to the TOGA, Lisa put her Gritzner next to my new (to me) machine, and, we found out that it was a Gritzner hand crank.  This is my first original hand crank.  All my other hand cranks have been converted from electric machines or treadles.  Woohoo!

Lisa's Gritzner (you can see the edge of mine on the right)

my Gritzner hand crank

There were several demo's over the weekend. Missy of Missy's Homemaking Adventures showed us how to use a ruffler.

ruffler attachment

people gathered around Missy for the demo

Missy, showing how to use the ruffler attachment

ruffling a skirt

Missy has two posts about the TOGA on her blog, here and here.

Lisa made everyone a cute nametag.

nametags

Lisa did a demo on re-wiring an electric sewing machine, using one of my vintage blue machines.

Lisa, re-wiring my machine

Lisa also re-wired another of my machines.  Now I have 2 more working machines.  Thanks Lisa!  It was fun watching and helping her.  I hope I can do it myself next time.

re-wired blue machine

Lisa working on the 2nd machine

Margaret offered to teach everyone about tension on machines.  Well, guess what, I had the perfect machine for this demo.  The Gritzner needed work on the top tension (put together incorrectly) and also on the bobbin (no replacements for this machine, we had to take it apart, and 're-shape' the spring.

Margaret, working on the shuttle spring

using a folded dollar bill to clean between the tension disks

taking apart the tension assembly

lay out the pieces, in the order you took them off, so you can get it back together, correctly, again

you can see that the #4 piece should NOT be between the tension disks (#3 & #5)  This was corrected.

The Gritzner now makes a nice stitch.  Thanks Margaret!

Stephanie, the lady who organized this TOGA, also did a demo.  She showed us a different way to make Crazy Quilt blocks. The tension wasn't working yet on my machines, so, I didn't get a block made.

Stephanie, with a stack of Crazy Quilt blocks, doing her demo

front of a crazy quilt block

back of a crazy quilt block

front of that same crazy quilt block

muslin fabric drawing, showing how to cut, and put together the block (you can draw each block differently)  The bias lines are stitched over, to prevent distortion.  After stitching those lines, cut apart, and start piecing on the muslin, then put it back together again.  

On Saturday, we had even more fun.  I did a demo on the Hexie tape measure, that I showed a few weeks ago here.

Hexie tape measure

We checked out everyone's machines.

Kay's hand crank

Sue's Wilcox & Gibbs chain stitch hand crank (I covet this machine!!!!)

Margaret's pink (bad picture, sorry) Atlas hand crank

Pfaff 130 I gave to Lisa, to give to her friend (Lisa wired it up and added a motor and foot control that I brought from another Treadle On member.  Thanks Katie F)

Missy sold a Singer 15 to Dannie

Dannie

machines for sale

Missy's hand crank

Missy found a new pincushion in one of the local shops.  Isn't the mouse cute!

Missy's mouse pincushion

Another demo was how to cut an apron from a man's shirt.  Lisa showed us how, and, Kay modeled it.

front of apron (still needs fabric decorations added)

back of apron (still needs strings for tying)

Now that you have seen the back of our TOGA t-shirts, here is the front.

Missy and me, in our TOGA t-shirts.

There are always raffles at TOGA's.  Here are some pictures of the raffle items.

I won the quilt in the bottom of the picture

raffle items

more raffle items

even more raffle items

raffle items

last of the raffle items (box was full of scraps of fabric)

It was a fun TOGA!